


Perpetual Motion

by ftld



Series: Theory [5]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24831907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftld/pseuds/ftld
Summary: Sometime after stitching up old wounds and before settling down for good, Leon sees a ghost.
Relationships: Leon/Yuffie (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Theory [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/263233
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This can probably stand alone with a hefty disclaimer that it is best read after (at least) Theory of Evolution. Leon and Yuffie are in an established relationship. There's some small references to The Siege, but nothing huge. Takes place between KH2 & KH3 for simplicity's sake.
> 
> Canon has been stabbed to death, set on fire, dressed up in a tutu, and made to compete on Ninja Warrior. Whether this is for better or worse... well...
> 
> This fic is complete, and chapters 2 and 3 will be posted as I finish editing them.

It was the middle of the night. Leon wasn’t sure what had awoken him, but it was the second time in a week he roused from slumber and found a mess of fine, black hair tickling his chin. A slim waist shifted in the crook of his elbow; his palm slid under Yuffie’s tank top. When he noticed, his fingers went dancing on soft, warm skin.

Somewhere, in Leon’s sleepy haze, he believed he was twenty years old again. It didn’t hurt, per se, not in the sour, gut-wrenching way he feared it would that first night Yuffie stretched her arms and settled into his bed with an entirely new intention. A slow ache enveloped him instead, a memory quickly and effortlessly smothered in favor of the present.

And Leon… Leon felt like his head was above water for the first time in five years.

Yuffie’s back was flush to his chest. Her breath stuttered—she was awake, too. Outside the window, fireflies danced in time with a pair of owls hooting at each other; his fingertips edged further, passed her ribs, and dared her to roll over. Yuffie squirmed but held firm. She did a terrible job of pretending to be unaffected, but this changing thing between them was brand new and begged exploration. They were settling into it, like the house they built together and the town they brought up from ashes.

The pads of his fingers drummed across her ribs in a slow, steady rhythm; Yuffie wriggled closer. Body heat trapped under the sheets contended with the shiver of sweat running down his spine. Yuffie pressed against him drove the temperature too high and still, Leon leaned closer. His muscles had wills of their own—all coiled and messy. Tension chased through his belly and his veins and he _wanted_. He dipped his head and ran his nose along her hairline; his lips pressed an open-mouthed kiss against her nape.

Yuffie surrendered.

* * *

It was purely coincidental that Leon was within shouting distance of the market at that precise moment. The signs were tell-tale: the crowd pulsed toward a lonely corner between shops; a noisy chatter swelled in the air; and, of course, in the center of all the commotion, someone was calling his name. Leon followed the babble, ready to find another of Yuffie’s friends spirited away from the void by Aerith’s magic. Instead, Leon found a ghost. “How—”

“Squall!” Laguna’s bellow drew an unreasonable amount of attention, and if that wasn’t enough to make Leon want to sink through the ground, the bear hug that trapped him immediately after did the job. Laguna swayed back and forth as he mumbled incoherent nonsense. After a short battle with his confusion, Leon hugged back—hadn’t he always said he would if he got the chance?

“I have so many questions.” Laguna hissed the words like a threat. “It took forever to get here, all the roads are different. What the hell happened?”

It took a handful of minutes to remember their audience—at least fifteen bystanders watched the exchange with rapturous attention. For a traveler to arrive via transport instead of appearing from thin air was something of a novelty; or, it could have been they were stunned the stranger had practically accosted Leon and seemed like he’d get away with all his limbs intact. Leon needed two attempts to disentangle himself.

“What happened to the town? What happened to _you_?” Laguna shot rapid-fire questions with no sign of stopping or slowing down. Leon began the arduous process of herding him toward the residential district.

It was surreal; like a waking dream. Leon had spent four years mourning the father he had only just started getting to know; it troubled him that the man stood mere feet away. His first two years in Traverse Town were littered with nights he’d jolt awake and find himself alone, nothing but regret for company—and so many of those nights he swore up and down that if by some miracle he ever got the opportunity, he’d learn to have a relationship with Laguna if it killed him. There must have been a hundred times Leon remembered that terrible last phone call, and tormented himself for everything left unsaid.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” Leon didn’t know what else to say, only that he had to say _something_.

Laguna stopped in his tracks and stared at Leon with his jaw dropped. “How long have I been gone?”

Leon cringed. He’d forgotten how awkward explaining these sorts of things was, especially to someone who expected at least twice as much confrontation as Leon could bother with. “Come on, I’ll fill you in at my place.”

It wasn’t far. Laguna’s gaze swept over the cobblestone streets and rows of shrubbery, his constant line of questioning forgotten. Leon fought the urge to point out those bricks he laid and the roof he fixed—there’d be time for that later, and bragging was senseless.

Leon’s house had evolved with the peaceful downtime. His and Yuffie’s, he supposed; it was as much hers as his, always had been. Aerith’s influence was apparent, too: she’d planted what must have been hundreds of flowers in little strips on each side of the front door, and then hung baskets full of herbs from the windowsills for good measure. The soft greenery was a pleasant contrast against the hard lines of brick and mortar, and blended well with the dark-stained wood trimmings. Even Leon could admit Aerith’s touch was a welcome one.

A handful of saplings were starting to come into their own, two in Leon’s front lawn, and two in Aerith’s. Their skinny branches had started to produce enough leaves to cast shadowy patches around the trunks where Tifa and Yuffie would sit and chat with Aerith while she tended to the flowers.

Leon didn’t care much for the exterior, but Yuffie gave an enormous amount of attention to the trees. Someday, Yuffie said, they would tower higher than the roof, branches spread wide toward the heavens. Yuffie had named all four of them as they buried the roots in sod, but she never spoke the names clear or loud enough for Leon to figure out exactly what they were.

Laguna mouthed the words ‘your place?’ and stared at the scenery, baffled. Leon figured he’d understand soon enough—he’d meet Aerith, after all—and all but shoved him through the front door to gain privacy from lingering onlookers.

Yuffie stood balanced on one leg in the kitchen, muttering to herself and glaring at an assortment of massacred vegetables strewn over the counter. She had one hand on her hip and the other clutched backwards around the handle of a knife, like she’d finished considering her options and was gearing up to begin stabbing things. Affection swept Leon away at the sight. Yuffie was an aggressively horrific chef. The woman could not prepare or cook a meal to save her life, and yet, she tried her best whenever he ran late. Thankfully, she generally tried to leave any of the actual cooking to Leon.

“Are you butchering produce again?” Leon asked, ready to duck. He’d learned the hard way about startling her while armed with sharp objects, even those as mundane as kitchen knives. Of course, she’d learned the same about him.

“The pesky little monsters deserve it.” Yuffie grumbled and shot a grin over her shoulder. She pivoted on the spot when she caught sight of their guest. “Who’s this?”

“Who’s _she_?” Laguna retaliated, grossly offended Yuffie dared question him before he could get there first, Leon was sure.

Leon made a round-up motion with one hand and used the other to steer Laguna to the living room. Yuffie put down the knife and followed with a curious furrow of her eyebrows. He waited for the pair of them to settle the battle of who would sit where and sit first and who provided the most adept impatient staring—Leon honestly never considered the possibility these two would be in the same room.

Laguna tore his attention from Yuffie, and for fifteen surreal seconds he stared at the cases full of weapons mounted behind squashy furniture, stuck halfway between admiration and confusion.

Leon walked to stand behind Yuffie—his pace too quick to be casual or at ease—and rested a hand on her shoulder. He wanted the support but he also wanted to keep her in the chair if need be. Yuffie was prone to reactions, be they good, subdued, or noisy enough to break glass. An uncomfortable nervousness settled over Leon; he cleared his throat to draw Laguna’s attention away from the rows of Yuffie’s throwing stars hanging on the walls.

“This is Yuffie.” It was the easier place to start.

“Your—girlfriend?” Laguna asked, an overly long and awkward pause between the words. His eyes made a rapid circuit between Leon’s face and Yuffie’s hand that had come up to cover his. Leon prayed that Laguna would miraculously rediscover a sense of tact that, if he’d ever had it, was abandoned long before Leon ever met the man. “What happened to Rinoa?”

No such luck.

Yuffie’s fingers tightened around his, and her posture straightened. Leon squeezed back, a silent promise that she didn’t need to worry. He was slowly but surely making his peace, and it didn’t sting so much to think about it, anymore.

“Rinoa died, five years ago.”

“Five years?!” Laguna was up like a shot, hands curled into fists and breath coming too quick. He rocked back and forth before turning on his heel and pacing the short length of the sofa; the circuit back and forth was too short to look anything other than manic. A surge of pity welled within Leon as Laguna pressed his lips together and tried to wipe the moisture from his eyes before it turned into full-blown tears. He muttered so quiet, Leon almost didn’t catch it. “I keep losing so much time with you.”

Leon’s heart smashed wide open. Apparently, he wasn’t as well-adjusted as he thought. One sentence out of Laguna’s mouth was enough to shatter that confidence and send Leon scrambling for space from his emotions.

Yuffie sized up the scene unfolding with one glance between the pair of them, and had mercy. “Let’s get you settled into the guest room.”

Yuffie pulled Leon along by the hand, and then, after she realized Laguna was still having a meltdown, returned to grab hold of him as well. She led the awkward procession up the stairs to a short hallway all the upstairs rooms branched off. The space was free of decoration entirely, but only because Yuffie had run out of knives before she finished filling up the living room and their dresser.

It wasn’t until Laguna stood dead-center in the vacant bedroom that neither Leon nor Yuffie had any idea what to do with, that he snapped out of his stupor. “Why is your master bedroom for guests?”

Yuffie stopped in her tracks and made a choked, offended noise from deep in her throat. “Damn it!”

“I’ve always wondered if you noticed that.” Leon chuckled, grateful for the lighter topic to focus on, if only temporarily. “You made such a big deal of getting the bigger bedroom, I never could figure out why you only spent one night in it before you started moving into mine.”

“I—” Yuffie huffed. “That is so unfair, why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

Leon shrugged. “Because it was funny.”

Laguna backed into the room throughout their banter, and used the extra space to examine more of his surroundings without taking his eyes off Leon and Yuffie. Leon felt bad for the man, but it was a difficult sympathy to concentrate on when he was so overwhelmed.

“We’ll give you a minute,” Leon said, shuffling closer to Yuffie so she would have no choice but to inch out the door. “I’ll see what I can salvage for dinner. You can relax up here if you want, we’ll grab you when the food is ready.”

Laguna had scarcely nodded before Leon forced a step out of Yuffie large enough to clear the door and pulled it closed behind them. He kept going, down the hall a few steps and into their bedroom, and it wasn’t until he had another closed door between him and the complications of his past that he let himself lean against the wall and take a deep, shuddering breath.

“Is that your dad?!” Yuffie managed to shriek under her breath. Leon had no idea how she accomplished it without ripping her vocal cords in half.

Leon spared a nervous glance for the two, solid doors between them and Laguna. He whispered anyway. “Yes.”

“How?!”

Well, how the hell was Leon supposed to know? “I don’t have any better idea than you do! He just _appeared_ in the middle of the marketplace!”

Yuffie’s knees gave out, and she sank onto the bed. “Like Tifa and Cloud?”

Leon nodded. He crossed his arms and crouched. “And like you.”

“What does this mean?” Yuffie wondered, appearing torn between confusion, fear, and a devastating curiosity that Leon was sure to feel pangs of for years to come. “I thought… I thought it was Aerith’s doing?”

Leon always assumed Aerith had been responsible, too, and stared at the carpeting spanning between his feet and Yuffie’s. The lingering space between them had been closing at a comfortable pace over the past six months, but now? Leon had no idea. Should this change things? Did he want it to? He glanced up at Yuffie, for once perfectly serene and patient, waiting for him to pull his shit together. One of these days, he’d stop giving her so much practice at it.

“I thought he was gone forever.” It took significant effort to refer to Laguna alone.

Yuffie allowed the confession to flutter through the air until the silence edged on awkward. She picked absentmindedly at their blankets. “Let’s go finish up dinner. You won’t find out anything until you talk to him.”

She stood, and reached out a hand for Leon, hauling him to his feet as soon as his fingers wrapped around her wrist. She paused, and then pulled him down by the neck with her other hand. The kiss started tentative and unsure; the notion of Yuffie holding back was so absurd, Leon couldn’t stand it. He wrapped his free arm around her and hauled her up to the tips of her toes. They had this _thing_ between them. Leon couldn’t define it, and he’d long stopped trying to. All he knew was it was alive and it was right, and after all the tumbling he’d done over the past five years, this was where he was meant to land.

He murmured against her lips. “Thanks.”

* * *

Carefully, and with far too much effort for what the task required, Leon shredded a full head of lettuce. That, along with Yuffie’s pile of disfigured vegetables went into the largest bowl they had, and that was the limit of what Leon was capable of concentrating on for dinner.

Yuffie had something thawing in the fridge; she turned the stovetop up all the way before slapping the chunks of meat into a pan and navigating Leon in front of it. Leon turned down the heat a bit, content to stare at the sizzling pieces until it was time to turn them over. Yuffie, for her part, seemed happy to stand behind him, her cheek against his shoulder blade and fingers woven together over his belly button.

It took a decent amount of time for Laguna to sort himself out. By the time he sauntered into the kitchen, he had an expert smile plastered over his face and had buried whatever pain he suffered for losing five years. Leon wasn’t going to fake a smile, but his practiced neutral expression as he dished up the food was just as deceitful.

Laguna snagged the chair on the far side of the table, leaving Leon and Yuffie to contend with the glare from the window. Leon spent a few moments entertaining himself with thoughts of cheap curtains and the bedding upstairs that he and Yuffie decided was serviceable enough before concentrating on things they cared about more. Eventually, he’d get them some nice linens and some decent, heavy curtains that could block out light instead of dulling the sunshine to a level just short of manageable. He’d get to it after they finished with the living room—and after he built a new wall rack upstairs for his gunblade.

Yuffie sat close enough to Leon that their elbows brushed. The meal started out easy enough, but once Yuffie had made her way halfway through her plate, she loosened up enough to start talking. Laguna quickly followed suit.

“You have to tell me all about when he was little,” Yuffie said. She used her fork to emphasize her demand, dinner all but forgotten on her plate. “Was he always so grumpy?”

“It’s complicated.” Leon interjected with a nervous glance at Laguna. He didn’t want Yuffie drawing attention to how long Laguna went unaware that he had an angry child running around. The years lost between them had obviously cut deeply.

“It’s really not.” Laguna shrugged. “I didn’t know about him until he was… what, seventeen?”

Perhaps it was karma, worrying over someone who was so obviously going to pieces and refusing to admit it. “Thereabouts.”

“But yeah, he was absolutely the grumpiest kid I’ve ever seen in my life.” Laguna laughed, an enamored grin on his face. Leon didn’t understand how he could think back on it so fondly; it had been a wretched experience as far as he was concerned. Laguna shot a proud smile at him. “He’s always been strong as hell, though, and determined.”

God, Leon forgot how much Laguna liked to brag. He chased an oddly shaped hunk of cucumber around his plate and contemplated the potential outcomes if he bailed. Yuffie shot him a devious grin that erased all dreams of leaving. Instead, he stabbed an unreasonable amount of greens on his fork and shoved the whole thing in his mouth. At least they wouldn’t expect him to talk.

“Please tell me all the stories.” Yuffie was practically drooling. She smirked when she saw how full Leon’s mouth was. “You can stay here, don’t worry, I’ll convince him. You can pay your rent in anecdotes.”

Leon rushed to swallow his food. “No!”

“Yes!” Yuffie chimed. Her palm spread over his thigh under the table. Leon wasn’t falling for that again. Clumsy as Yuffie’s seductions started out, they _worked_ , to Leon’s complete mortification. She tried a different tactic after Leon scooted his chair another few inches away, and tried to annoy compliance out of him, instead. “Oh, be reasonable, Squall. It’s only fair!”

“No.” Leon growled. It didn’t matter how much he’d wished for second and third chances, he was absolutely not going to let his father move into his house. Laguna didn’t even want to, judging from the embarrassed amusement tickling his cheeks—Yuffie just didn’t know him well enough to see it. “This isn’t funny. Stop giving him ideas.”

“You can have your way. _For now_.” Yuffie leaned across the table toward Laguna, a conspiring twinkle in her eye. She pointed her fork between his eyebrows. “You know, I have to take his side, here. But you and I? Oh, we are going to _talk_ , later.”


	2. Chapter 2

A couple months back, Yuffie, Cid, and Cloud spent three solid weeks building an obstacle course spanning both Leon and Aerith's backyards; Leon was roped in once it became apparent that what Cloud and Cid envisioned was much too ambitious for the space they had available. The result was a strange blend of Leon, Cloud, and Cid's various military training, with some particularly brutal flair, courtesy of Yuffie.

The course started out simple: a series of rapid bunny hops with high-bars in between to roll or curl over. The section went from the far side of Aerith's yard all the way past Leon's kitchen windows. Originally, they planned to put in two or three five-foot walls to climb over next, but Yuffie vetoed the suggestion. Instead, she demanded a complicated series of nets that flared back to make the angle particularly troublesome. The assemblage towered fifteen feet into the air—an unstable monstrosity that swiveled and twisted at the slightest provocation. On top, a simple rope climb peaked on a landing taller than the rooftop.

Leon built the backside of the tower—a long series of monkey bars and rings that ran back to the start and then turned ninety degrees into a ground-level straightaway. At the time he'd wondered if it was wise to recreate pieces of Balamb's training yards, but the insecurity was quickly swept away.

Aerith's contribution to the gauntlet had been to demand padding beneath it at every opportunity, to break their falls.

It was a nice afternoon: warm, but not so humid that breathing felt unpleasant; sunny but not blindingly so. Cloud and Leon stood at the starting line with their friends a few feet back. This was something of a weekly tradition for the group; Leon and Cloud always went last. Hands clasped and arms stretched high over his head, Cloud leaned side-to-side, then reached down to his toes. Leon grabbed each foot to stretch out his legs, rotated his shoulders in wide circles, and shuffled his boots in the dirt a few times to get a feel for the ground.

Leon had spent three confused and frustrated days trying to find his footing after the sudden upheaval of Laguna's reappearance. He was still at the stage where he wanted to let Yuffie do the talking and pretend she was scheming terrible things for his future. Maybe in another day or two, he'd be ready to join the conversation—but for now he wanted to blow off some steam and forget old questions he'd fought hard to lay to rest.

"You ready?" Aerith had her trusty stopwatch in one hand and the other propped on her hip.

Leon nodded and took his position.

Cloud jumped up and down a couple of times before doing the same. "Ready."

"Go." Aerith said the word quietly, without fanfare. She got a kick out of making them squirm trying to listen for it. Once, Leon had been distracted by Yuffie doing a series of unfathomable stretches and missed the start entirely. Fortunately, only Aerith noticed. _Unfortunately_ , she teased him about it relentlessly.

Leon attacked the course with a ferocity he seldom had opportunity to express these days. He was stir-crazy and wound tight, anxious with an overflow of energy that showed no signs of depleting naturally. There was no pressing need to keep his blade sharpened and muscles in shape. The friendly competition helped ease the disorienting leisure.

The bunny hops were all higher than Leon was accustomed to—Cloud's insistence—and he could complete the sequence of pull-ups and rolls over high-bars in his sleep despite them being crammed into a smaller space than usual, because Cid didn't want them using momentum to sail over them. Then, the easy part was over, and Leon stared up at Yuffie's infernal tower. He cursed her the whole way up as he fruitlessly tried to keep his feet on the same side of the net as his hands. To his right, Cloud had somehow wound up sideways—but his cursing wasn't nearly as creative. Yuffie practically flew up the stupid thing; Leon still couldn't figure out how she did it.

His legs burned; the pounding of his heart echoed in his ears and thundered through his veins. The rope climb was fairly simple, but pulling himself up onto the platform above set every muscle in his arms and legs aflame. He needed five seconds prone on the landing before he could pull himself upright and lunge toward the monkey bars. Somewhere, off to the side and down fifteen feet, Yuffie was catcalling them. It wasn't an unusual occurrence, but Laguna's encouraging laughter was new, and Leon would _never_ learn to expect Aerith's wolf-whistles.

The first set of monkey bars functioned as a welcome break. The second required a ladder down to get to, and slanted further toward the ground, requiring more control. Leon preferred skipping every other bar and using gravity to compensate for the slightly slower pace, but it never gave him an edge over Cloud who took them one at a time, same as the other set. On the last platform, the slope evened back out as it led into a long sequence of rings spaced just far enough apart that getting enough reach required a strong, steady rhythm. Leon exhaled and swung through the ache in his shoulder—he didn't mind, it distracted from the bite in his deltoids and abs. His shoulder held steady as he finished the rings and he dropped to the ground, ready to give his arms a break and run to the end.

The rest of the world fell away. Leon's feet pounded against dirt; Cloud was so close he couldn't tell who lead. For fifteen wondrous seconds, there was nothing except for Leon and the sound of his pulse hammering in his ears. The simplicity dissipated, and he nearly buckled over after overshooting the white line spray-painted on the grass by at least six feet. Someday he would get to the end without wanting to die. To his right, Cloud panted for breath as they both struggled to remain upright—some delusional production of pretending they weren't gasping for equilibrium. Yuffie, angel that she was, handed them each a bottle of water before thumping Leon on the back as hard as she could when he went to take a sip. "Nice job!"

"Want a turn?" Leon nodded toward Laguna once he felt like he could speak without asphyxiating.

"I figured I'd watch this time." Laguna was, no doubt, using the opportunity to devise his strategy.

"What about you?" Yuffie asked Aerith, teasing. "Is today the day you finally give it a whirl?"

Aerith wriggled in place and tightened the ribbon holding her hair up. "You know what? I think it is."

The whole group of them went silent. Leon realized his mouth was hanging open and snapped it shut.

"For real?!" Yuffie choked in disbelief. She'd been trying to goad Aerith into this ever since they built the damn thing.

Aerith took her place, a smug smile on her face and far too much energy in her jittery limbs. Apparently, she was serious, but not serious enough to warm up. Leon settled against the house, ready for a show.

"On your mark!" Yuffie howled. She bounced a few times, nervous and excited. "Get set! GO!"

An exaggerated cartwheel was followed by two spins and what Leon could only describe as a liberal misuse of wind magic. Aerith shot over the logs and bars, up to the top of the tower. A cocky bow followed, then Aerith skipped her way to the monkey bars; she climbed up on top and walked her way across, arms outstretched for balance. Leon swore he heard Cloud chuckle, but when he snapped his gaze to the side, Cloud stood perfectly straight and composed.

Aerith had trouble coming down the far side but managed it with another gust of aero that sent tawny hair fluttering above in waves—and though she had to hold her skirt down to keep it from flying over her head, she landed with a pleased grin. Her boots ground into the dirt as she considered the final leg, Aerith tapped her chin as if in thought. Then, an impressively long stream of ice exploded from her outstretched palm, frosting the full length of the straightaway; Aerith leapt upon the slippery rail, and slid over the finish line.

"I win!" Aerith shouted, breathless and ecstatic, with arms flung wide open.

Yuffie stomped her way back to the starting line. "I didn't know we were allowed to cheat! I want a do-over!"

* * *

Cid's workshop had become somewhat of a de facto meeting place in the time since the reconstruction efforts began in earnest. It was a central location, and more often than not the entire purpose of any gathering including Cid revolved around him, too, and Cid was almost always in his workshop.

They were navigating a meandering conversation without a real point to it. Leon straddled a chair, Yuffie hopped onto a countertop, and Cid and Laguna rounded out the group, positioned so they formed a loose circle. At some point Sora and Aerith had wandered in; Leon wasn't paying much attention. He didn't need to listen as Laguna sensationalized the brief overview of his history with Leon and the fall of their world.

Laguna's reappearance in Esthar was interesting, but Leon quickly zoned out once he got the gist of it. He could probably get away with leaving; Laguna had lost his point entirely and was starting to tell stories of all the insane things he'd hired out Balamb SeeDs for, back when Leon commanded the Garden and didn't want anything to do with a parental figure. The exercise had been insufferable, but he supposed it had worked in the end—Laguna did walk away with Leon's attention, as he'd intended.

"That's so weird," Sora said, stretching his arms upward before letting his hands fall to rest atop his messy hair. "I have a friend named Selphie. What a coincidence."

Leon's heart skipped a beat before racing harder than it had any right to. "What did you say?"

Sora frowned at Leon, then glanced over at Laguna, confused by the suddenly tense atmosphere. "I said I know a girl named Selphie, back in Destiny Islands. We went to school together."

"That was her name, right?" Laguna asked.

Leon nodded, his wary gaze sticking to Sora, who fidgeted under the scrutiny. It would be unwise to ask, there was _no way_. "What's your friend look like?"

"Huh?" Sora, if possible, seemed even more confused. "She's got… I don't know? Brown hair? Kind of turns out in one of those flip things." He held up a hand to his eyebrows before frowning and lowering it to the middle of his nose. "About this tall probably. Wears a lot of bright clothes. She's crazy good with nunchaku."

That was all it took for Leon to snap back into the conversation with violent fervor. He'd apologize, later, for grilling Sora so hard—but after hitting pay-dirt with a story of an annoying brat named Seifer in Twilight Town, the churning in the pit of his stomach exploded into full-on nausea. It was impossible. Except… Sora was right, it was a ridiculous coincidence. These weren't common names, and these weren't quiet people with soft personality traits. Selphie and Seifer were _loud_.

"He keeps calling me a loser, too." Sora had been complaining about Seifer ever since it clicked for him that Leon might know the guy. He was going on ten uninterrupted minutes of airing grievances, with no sign of slowing. It was definitely Seifer, inconceivable as it should have been. Sora described the obnoxious twerp to a tee, right down to Fuu and Rai. " _He_ _'s_ the loser! What sort of wimp wants to fight with foam bats?!"

Cid remained quiet, but his troubled frown intensified the longer Sora ranted. Leon nodded toward him. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm not sure yet. Have to talk to some folks, first." Cid stared thoughtfully at the ceiling lights and bounced his heel. "Anyone know where Tifa is?"

"I haven't seen her around. She's probably at home." Aerith had stayed quiet throughout Laguna's stories and Sora's tirade, and she avoided catching Leon's eye as she turned toward Cid. "I'll go with you, I've been meaning to talk to her about something."

Leon narrowed his eyes as she passed him on her way out the door. Aerith was a terrible liar.

"So…" Sora started, glancing between everyone who remained in the workshop. "What's this Esthar place like?"

"It used to be impressive, but now it's kind of a wreck. There's a lot of technology you can't find anywhere else, but now it's buried under rubble." Laguna sighed. "Kiros and Ward are cleaning things up the best they can; I'll have to go back to help, soon."

Leon could understand that.

Yuffie launched into a handful of stories about their own clean-up and reconstruction. Leon stopped listening again until Yuffie got caught up in a tirade over conning herself out of her promised master bedroom—he secretly hoped she'd never let it go.

"Wait." Sora jolted in place with wide, surprised eyes. "So are you two like… _together_ , together now? Like, you actually admit it and everything?"

Yuffie nodded, a wolfish smile full of teeth spread all over her face. "And _everything_."

"Nice!" Sora high-fived her. At the same moment, Laguna threw his head back and cackled.

Leon grumbled. "Why does this always happen to me?"

"Because you let a glacier out-pace you." Yuffie kicked her feet in the air and shot a look just daring Leon to argue with her.

"You have to tell me how you did it." Sora punctuated the demand by grabbing Yuffie's arm and shaking.

That was certainly interesting.

Yuffie snorted. "Well, well, well…"

* * *

It had been nearly five months since Leon opened the tiny box he kept stashed away with his ammo. The clasp slid open with barely a touch; the hinges were silent. Leon scooped up the silver chain with his fingertips and let the pair of rings caught on it fall toward the floor.

The plain ring had always captivated him. Rinoa never said anything about it, beyond that it wasn't important, but he'd never believed her. She wouldn't have kept it if it meant nothing, and she wouldn't have put his Griever ring alongside it if that was the case, either. Leon always assumed it belonged to Julia, passed down from mother to daughter for some private reason or another that simply had never been any of his business.

He ran the chain through his fingers and tucked the necklace into a pouch on his belt. The box went back with his ammo. Leon straightened his posture and jutted his chin out. He needed answers, and he wasn't going to let himself pretend otherwise.

Determined strides and an ironclad resolve drove Leon to Cid's workshop. He'd deal with Aerith later if he had to; she was much more difficult to get answers out of when she had a stake in keeping quiet.

Leon yanked the door to the workshop open with enough force to send it banging against the side of the building. He let it fall closed behind him with an audible snap for good measure. Cid hunched over a small area cleared on his workbench, various salvaged hardware strewn around the edges. He had a small pair of pliers in one hand, and held still under the other was a round, metal contraption, wires jutting from the middle. Cigarette smoke hung in the air; Cid never bothered with a fan or opening windows if he wasn't expecting company.

Leon grabbed a stool nearby and waited.

"You just here to stare at me?" Cid grumbled, once the silence had persisted too long for comfort.

Leon wasn't in the mood for games. "You know why I'm here. Start talking."

Cid set down his pliers and drummed a pattern against his workbench as he slowly rotated his project back and forth, no longer paying attention to fixing it, but rather using it as a prop for the distressing conversation ahead. "I've mostly convinced myself those are your friends Sora was talking about."

"How can that be?" Leon asked. He wished Cid's conclusion was surprising. "They're Sora's age. They can't be the same people."

Cid huffed around the cigarette in his mouth. He glanced up at Leon before returning his focus to the machinery he was tinkering with. "If they're not the same people, could they be the same heart? Maybe they were reborn, somehow? I'd like to think it's possible, I don't know how much Yuffie shared, but we have friends that are gone, too. I wouldn't mind thinking they could be out there, somewhere."

"She told me some of it." Leon was pretty certain he actually knew everything, but that wasn't Cid's concern. He didn't want to ask his next question, but charged ahead before he could give the reluctance attention. The answer was no, Leon could feel it, but he needed someone else's take, too. "Does that mean—do you think there are others?"

"I have a theory," Cid confessed. "But it's not good, and I don't want to share it with you, in particular."

Leon preferred to rip off his band-aids, and the more Cid drew it out, the more he wanted to get it over with. "Spit it out."

Cid dawdled with the tangled wires in front of him. He wasn't bothered by Leon's intimidation attempts, seemingly debating with himself over whether he should say anything at all. The cigarette in Cid's mouth glowed bright orange with a long, heavy drag. Smoke stung Leon's nose on its way up to the rafters. Once upon a time, Leon had toyed with the idea of trying to get Cid to give up the filthy habit—but even Aerith never bothered, which made Leon assume it wasn't worth his time.

"I've been talking with Laguna. Seems the way he remembers things isn't all that different from how I do, but there are some key differences. His story lines up a little better with Cloud and Tifa's. It makes sense: Cloud and Tifa remember going down fighting, and they didn't turn up with us in Traverse Town. It seems reasonable to me that Aerith may not have had as much to do with saving them as we assumed." Cid shot a sympathetic look at Leon and fidgeted with his project one more time before deliberately taking his hands off it. "You told me once that some of your friends had died, but that others became a floating heart that was carried away. I think that's the difference. If the heartless didn't take them…"

It was, all things considered, pretty close to what Leon had prepared for. He'd watched Rinoa and Irvine breathe their last; he knew they weren't coming back, it wasn't the same as Laguna. The involuntary hope that had bubbled within him for a split-second before he shut it down was nothing more than a nuisance he knew better than to give into.

"Is the simulation ready?" Leon twined his fingers together and stretched out his arms. He paid special attention to the shoulder he'd dislocated, back in Traverse Town, when he and Yuffie barely knew each other. It felt like a lifetime ago; in some ways Leon supposed it was, if he wanted to be dramatic about it.

Cid recognized the close of the conversation and twisted around to the computer. He tapped a handful of buttons; they squawked back incomprehensible noises. "Sure thing, kid. What are you looking for?"

"I don't care. Just throw me in there with something that'll kick my ass if I don't pay attention."

Cid grinned and stamped his cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray. "I got just the thing."

Leon took his position and reached for his weapon once he was in the simulation. He grit his teeth, determined to fight until his arms fell off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go! I'm aiming for some time over the weekend.


	3. Chapter 3

Leon sat at the edge of the High Tower—where he fell all those years ago, where the world ended. He pulled the chain of Rinoa's necklace through his fingers. A pleasant, distracting ache buzzed through his muscles and muted his more chaotic thoughts. So high up, the air was crisp and refreshing; the breeze caressed his cheeks and drained some of the residual anger smoldering within him.

A handful of yards back, Yuffie shuffled closer. Leon was torn between inviting her over or chasing her away so he could be left with his misery for a little longer. If he gave it enough time, could it run its course? Could he stand up and walk away from this place for good? He had a hundred wounds still healing, but he'd been consistently stitching them up over the past year. Now, it felt like all that progress should be blown to pieces—but it wasn't. Leon remained steady and calm, and accepting. That was the part that _hurt:_ the acceptance, and the guilt of moving on.

Yuffie settled behind him, her back to his. Her weight against him was a steadying presence; her quiet, a much needed calm in the eye of his turbulent emotions. Leon had complicated feelings on the matters tumbling before him, to say the least, and he wasn't sure he wanted to untangle the mess and examine how he really felt about any of it.

When the sun dipped to the horizon, Leon found his voice. "What are you doing?"

Yuffie hummed. "Reading."

"A book?" Leon asked, craning his neck around, suddenly curious. Yuffie never read books.

"Don't sound so surprised!" Yuffie had a scowl on her face and had already stashed the book away. All Leon could see was the flash of neon pink lettering against a light brown cover.

Leon immediately decided he'd find a way to get that book away from her—he was curious beyond belief. But… later. He scooted to the side so Yuffie could turn around and dangle her legs off the High Tower with him. She leaned back, palms flat behind her, face tilted up and into the setting sun. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye with a sad smile; she reached for his hand and squeezed so tight it hurt. Leon struggled for the right words to say. Yuffie tilted her head and waited.

The moment passed. He couldn't sort out what to tell her about what he'd learned from Cid, or how he felt about the horrifying notion rolling around his head that he should have let his friends be devoured by the heartless rather than try to save them at all. It was a thought he couldn't allow to take root. He'd made his peace and it was useless to torment himself over it. He couldn't have known; he doubted even Xehanort had realized. Still, the musing circled, waiting for his defenses to fall.

"I see that necklace. You don't have to hide it from me; I meant what I said." Yuffie leaned into his side and elbowed him in the ribs. Leon submitted and wrapped his arm over her shoulders so she could snuggle into his side.

"Yeah? And what was that?"

"That I was never going to leave. Doesn't matter what happens, doesn't matter what you do. I'm not going anywhere and you can't make me." Yuffie sighed. "So, grieve. Embrace what you've lost. Go ahead and hope that she's still alive out there somewhere if that's how you need to deal with it. It's not going to change a thing—but please stop moping around like you've got more to lose. You don't. I won't allow it."

Leon struggled to absorb the sentiment—the unconditional loyalty that Yuffie laid at his feet when she had so many trust issues, she made a game of it. Then again, so did he, and they'd made a silent agreement to play that game together. "If I recall, you also promised that you would save me."

Yuffie snorted. "Nice of you to finally admit you were only pretending to be asleep."

"You never asked."

"True." Yuffie tightened her grip, digging her nails into the indents between his knuckles. "I think we saved each other in the end."

Leon didn't need to consider his response. It washed through him and swept away his darker thoughts. In the end, wasn't that what was important? They saved everyone they could, and then they saved each other. "I agree."

After a few peaceful minutes, Yuffie scooted backward and pulled her legs up onto the stone. "I'm going to head home. Don't stay out too long, okay? I _will_ send your father out after you. How fun is it that I get to say that now?"

Leon glared, but it was a playful groan that accompanied it. "Don't you dare."

"Test me." Yuffie's threat would have been more effective if she hadn't been laughing. She waved a hand in the air as she walked away.

* * *

For the third day in a row, Leon walked in his front door to find Laguna sitting on his couch, staring at nothing in particular as he waited with one leg crossed over the other knee. It was an odd routine forming. It was all the stranger because Laguna had been staying with Cid for the past two weeks, despite near-constant protests that he should head back to Esthar soon. The man was clearly waiting for something, had some awkward conversation simmering that he wasn't sure how to initiate but couldn't walk away without doing so.

Perhaps if Leon cooperated, Laguna would stop being so hung up on losing twenty-two of his twenty-eight years to the cruelty of reality and another four after that to Leon's stubbornness. The problem was that Leon didn't want to engage in this process of whining and moping over the unfairness of the world. He'd done enough of that, and he was tired of feeling bad about things he couldn't hope to change. What Leon wanted to get to was the part where they accepted and moved on. It was unfortunate he couldn't cheat, like Aerith, and skip to the end.

"I like your girlfriend. She's good for you." It was a tame segue into the more difficult topic they were dancing around. Laguna's nerves betrayed him in the rapid bouncing of his knee and deliberately loose jaw.

Leon scowled and started clearing out some of his pockets onto the hall table. His gunblade would come upstairs with him, but the knife stashed in his jacket went back in the case on the wall. So did the other knife strapped to his ankle. Yuffie always kicked her shoes under the little table by the front door, but Leon preferred to keep his boots on. He did, however, surrender his jacket to the hall closet.

Laguna's head dropped to the back of the couch. "The two of you, I swear."

"What?"

"Ignoring the fact that you both have to unpack an arsenal whenever you come home?" Laguna snorted and rolled his eyes. "You make the same face. Not in a figurative sense, but literally. You literally make the exact same face every time I call her your girlfriend."

Leon wouldn't have noticed without the attention, but now that he was aware of it, he felt his eyebrows scrunch and his upper lip curl the slightest bit.

"Yeah, that one," Laguna said, eying Leon from his periphery. He shuddered. "It's creepy as hell."

The conversation left a bad taste in Leon's mouth. He supposed Laguna was fortunate Yuffie wasn't around. "Do me a favor and don't mention it to Yuffie. She'd probably object to being referred to as mine. Plus, she might stab you—she _really_ despises the term 'girlfriend.'"

"Well, what am I supposed to call her?" Laguna whined. "You have so many stupid _rules_. It's ridiculous! She's your girlfriend and you're my _son_ , why can't I call you by the name Raine gave you?" He'd picked up steam by the end, and wrung his hands with crazed desperation.

Leon took a seat in the armchair and considered how best to explain something so personal to a parent he barely knew. He sympathized with Laguna, he did, but that didn't mean he would give in. Laguna was a grown man, he could adapt if he needed to. Besides, if they were going to build any semblance of a relationship, they needed to start on these new foundations, not on old ones buried under ruin and death.

"I haven't gone by Squall since the heartless destroyed this world. I won't pretend it wasn't a little melodramatic, and I won't lie to you and say that what it meant then is what it means now, but the bottom line is that I wasn't doing all that well as Squall," Leon admitted. "I had a lot of issues that I didn't know how to address heaped on top of so much baggage that I couldn't hope to claw my way out from under it. When I changed my name I told myself I was going to do _better_. It took some years, and a hell of a lot of pain, but this? This is more than anything I ever had before.

"Besides," Leon continued. "I promised myself I would rebuild Radiant Garden, that my name was payment for its destruction, and I can't take it back until this place is restored."

For the first time in all his memories, Laguna gave him a look that wasn't some combination of awe, pride, and despair. He asked, "Do you… do you not see it?"

"See what?"

" _Squall._ _"_ Laguna enunciated the end of his name with a harsh snap of his teeth. "You've rebuilt it. The rest of them may not know better, but _I do_. You've done more than restore Radiant Garden by this point. This place—you've built something amazing here. Why are you pretending it's less than it was?"

Leon supposed if they threw the castle out of consideration, Laguna was correct. Truth be told, he wasn't sure he wanted to touch the castle, anyway. It'd be wrong to restore it. The crumbling ruins suited a memorial, a reminder of what befell Radiant Garden, and a cautionary tale to defend it against such destruction.

Surely, though, if he was being unreasonable, Yuffie would call him out on it—she never let him get away with being maudlin. Except… maybe she would permit it, in this case. She still called him Squall, sometimes, but it was more of a poke than anything else; a warning that he was getting too temperamental and to tone it back. Leon stared out the back windows, at the hellish netting swaying in the summer night. Maybe it was more that none of them knew what to do if they didn't need to keep building. Leon and Yuffie had talked about it, once, out on the postern, and shared a miserable uncertainty of what their lives would become if the fighting was over, for good.

"You're actually surprised at the possibility you could be done?" Laguna asked. His trademark awe and despair made a reappearance.

Leon contained the jitters vibrating through his legs. He couldn't handle the notion of this speculative future where he had nothing to atone for and nothing to fight. Still, perhaps it wouldn't kill him to throw Laguna a bone. "I won't rip your head off if you call me Squall. Just… can you try to keep it in check? And don't make it out to be a game Yuffie will want to join in on."

Laguna, to his credit, seemed willing to accept the compromise. "I suppose that'll have to do."

"I know it's difficult for you. There's a lot that is different now."

"I'm sorry about Rinoa." The words gushed from Laguna like water from a hose turned full-pressure.

"You never liked her." Leon felt guilty pointing it out, but it was true, and part of him had been itching to say it since he was a teenager.

Laguna shook his head. The pained expression he'd carried ever since arriving in Radiant Garden faded into something more firmly settled in grief. "Doesn't mean I wanted you to lose her. I am so, so sorry that I've never been there for any of the hard parts of your life. All I want is to make that right."

"You're here now. We should let that be enough." Leon stood, intending to finish cleaning up for the night before turning in, and clasped a hand over Laguna's shoulder. In the next instant, Laguna stood and trapped him between arms strong with years of training and discipline—Laguna had never enjoyed sitting still, either. Leon didn't fight it too hard, but he put up enough of a struggle to demonstrate his displeasure with the manhandling. Laguna was so _handsy_.

"I'm glad you had someone like Yuffie to help get you through it." Laguna released him and spared a few seconds to get himself under control. "I think I'm going to give that obstacle course of yours a shot in the morning. Want in?"

Now that was the kind of father-son bonding Leon could get on board with. "Sure."

* * *

Late into the night, Leon sat on his front step, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, and gaze fixed on a crack that had mystically appeared in the front walk that was driving him _crazy._ It was much too soon for the walk to crack. They'd have to check the foundations, or maybe there was something wrong with the mix? He couldn't remember who had been in charge of it. Cid, probably; it seemed unlikely Cid would make a mistake like that.

He was stalling. He wasn't even trying to pretend otherwise. Perhaps it was time to put an end to such ridiculous detours. There was a pleasant burn running through his limbs when he stood and went inside, then up the stairs. Cid's simulations were teetering on the edge of unreasonable—with a few more tweaks, they'd be perfect.

Yuffie sat in the center of their bed, the blankets puddled beneath her legs, and every one of their four pillows crammed behind her. She had that book out again but stashed it in her night table the instant she saw him. Leon narrowed his eyes; he could probably get to it before she had a chance to find a better hiding place. He'd give it a shot, anyway. He pulled off his belts, then circled to the end of the bed, grabbed Yuffie's ankles, and tugged her straight off her mountain of pillows.

He was already on her before she could regain her bearings enough to retaliate. "Hey."

" _Oh."_ Yuffie giggled. "Never mind, I'm not outraged anymore."

There was this spot, right between her thunderous pulse and the corner of her jaw that drove Yuffie mad. Her skin tasted and smelled like the sun; some bizarre cream that Tifa had come up with that Yuffie liked to slather everywhere. They guarded the recipe with such ferocity that Leon was sure it was just crushed up flower petals mixed into boring, generic lotion.

One of his hands was already wandering over her shoulder and along her curves. The fabric of her shorts bunched lower as he traced her hip with his fingers. His other hand clenched the cheap sheets that had always fallen on the acceptable side of good enough. They weren't, though, not really, not anymore; Yuffie deserved better.

Yuffie's legs settled on either side of his hips, and then she shoved his shoulder, hard. Leon rolled to his back, pulling her along so she could tower over him once she'd settled onto her knees, straddling his thighs. Yuffie liked to have control; Leon was learning to enjoy letting her.

The shift brought a sense of urgency, the compulsion to ease his thumbs under the waistband of her shorts. Her hands sneaked under his clothes. Leon convinced himself to release his grip on her thigh and waist for as long as it took to sit up and brush a sweaty clump of hair from her forehead.

"If you mean it, if we're going to stay together no matter what comes, then I promise, too."

Yuffie grinned. She took a brief diversion from her mission to divest them both of their pesky clothes. "Deal."

He framed her face with both hands and nearly swallowed it all back—Leon wasn't good at expressing himself with words, and these words, in particular, were always difficult. He'd only ever said them to one other person. It was a struggle to remember that saying them to Yuffie didn't invalidate what he'd felt before, when he was young and caught up in a different type of devotion. It slipped from his tongue between bouts of indecision, propelled by a sudden onset of bravery. He buried his face in her neck because it was _too much_ to deal with. That glow lighting up the triumph in her eyes was overwhelming; the tsunami let loose in his chest would drown him if he wasn't careful. He felt her grin against his temple and wondered if drowning would be all that bad.

Yuffie's fingers carded through his hair. "Yeah, I know. Remember? It goes both ways."

The thing between them that Leon didn't care to define was at once raw and exhilarating… and calm, and soft, and electricity zipping through his veins. The groan Yuffie tore from his chest with a deliberate roll of her hips was both breathless and full. She was such a quick study, it was unfair. Every passing day Yuffie discovered something new that could reduce Leon to an unintelligible mess, and she used the knowledge ruthlessly.

Leon's kisses resumed, ran lower—her jaw, her neck, her collarbone. He mouthed the words again, over her heart, before letting Yuffie pry his lips away long enough to rip his shirt over his head.

"I guess I'm not going anywhere, either." The humor of it struck him all at once. After six months on top of four years, where else was there to be? But Yuffie knew that—it was why she said it in the first place. "You can't make me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really, I wrote this whole thing just because I wanted Laguna to be the one to point out to Yuffie that she accidentally gave up her master bedroom in Theory of Evolution. It's been cracking me up for the past five years. I put it off and put it off and then kind of fell away from writing for a good long while. I was also a little wary of letting this absurdly detailed head-canon of mine grow any bigger because I was sure it'd be blasted to even more pieces than it started in with KH3. Joke was on me with that one, eh?
> 
> Anyway, after I finished editing up all the stuff I had sitting around, I figured where better to start trying to write again, but here.
> 
> Thanks for reading, hope you got some amusement out of it :)


End file.
